In the Name of Breakfast
by DarkClerk
Summary: Olympic pole-vaulting hopeful Brent Underjaw wasn't real. But the feeling of betrayal Annie carried was. Why would Abed catfish her? Was it really just about pancakes?
1. Chapter 1

Annie waited a week.

Out of respect for Troy and the hole he left behind. And for Abed's sake. He was quiet and distant- more distant than usual- and she wanted to let him get his equilibrium back before she confronted him. But eventually the time came when she had to ask, when the pressure of not asking was like a weight crushing all the other words out of her. If she didn't say them she wouldn't be able to say anything else and she couldn't stand the thought of losing him like they had lost Troy.

So, as they emptied the dish rack together and she handed him a plate to put away, she started, "If you wanted pancakes you just could have asked. You didn't have to lie."

He froze, the plate held between them for just a second before turning away to tuck it into the cabinet. His voice was muffled and his face hidden by the cabinet door, "I guess so."

Annie frowned. That was his answer?

There was something else she really needed to say but he seemed determined to keep his head in the cabinet. Annie gave a soundless sigh and spoke the words to his back. Maybe, it would be easier that way.

"I'm really sorry about medicating you. That wasn't okay. I shouldn't have done it and I'll never do it again," It didn't feel easier. Maybe, she shouldn't have reminded him. He was just standing there, staring at the plates and bowls, not looking at her. She pushed on, "I was really scared we would fail and-" Her voice was getting thin but she lifted her chin, "I push. I'm a pusher. It's not a good quality and sometimes I lose sight of it. Or maybe I let it get out of control. Anyway, I'm really sorry about the drugs and the money. I gave Troy his share before he left. I have yours, too."

He shut the cabinet door and nodded, "Okay."

"Okay? Is that all you have to say?"

"I forgive you."

She let out a short breath, "I'm glad you forgive me. But isn't there something you should say to me? About the emails?" She prompted.

He frowned a little, "I'm sorry?" He offered.

"Are you?" She demanded, "Are you sorry you deceived me for an entire month and made me think you lived in Iowa and loved dogs and romantic comedies and that you had a little sister in a wheelchair-" Her eyes filled with tears, "How could you lie to me like that? What were you thinking?"

His eyes went wide and his body was doing that thing it did- where he gave the impression he was moving as far away from you as possible while standing still. Somehow instead of feeling annoyed and sad for him, it made her feel rejected.

"I have to go." He announced abruptly and stepped around her. He picked his keys up from the table and was out the door a second later.


	2. Chapter 2

Six Days Later. . .

A single light burned over the dining room table when Abed opened the door to the apartment. Annie raised her head and blinked at him sleepily. Then she seemed to recognize him and her eyes narrowed, "You!" She said, pointing a finger at him and then at the chair across from her, "Sit."

"I'm really tired, Annie. Could we do this in the morning?" Abed opened his mouth and attempted a yawn.

"I'd say sure if I thought you would be here in the morning but we both know you won't be. You've been avoiding me."

"I've been very busy with my shooting schedule and-"

"Don't lie to me! Garrett said you haven't had a project for weeks. You just didn't want to talk about the emails."

"What emails?" He blinked.

Annie took a deep breath, "You know what emails. Look Abed, I know it's a hard time for you. And I waited until Troy was gone so I wouldn't infringe on your last couple of weeks with him. But I need to talk about this. How could you catfish me? How could you play with my heart for- _for pancakes_?!"

"I did it in the name of breakfast."

" _Do you honestly think that's a good enough reason?_ "

Annie's hands tightened to fists and then relaxed. Under the table, she pressed her feet hard against the floor and then let up. Abed watched, his head tilted to the side. When she looked back her expression was neutral again.

"I know you struggle with empathy. Could you please, _try_ to see this from my perspective?" She asked.

"Like you're trying to see it from mine?"

"But- wait, what?" Annie frowned at him in confusion.

Abed leaned down, the overhead light sliding over his strong features. The world beyond the kitchen, beyond the circle of light fell away. His dark eyes met hers for a moment and her breath stopped in her chest.

"Why did I do that, Annie?"

Then he was gone.

Annie stared open mouthed at the sheet that served as the door to his room, trembling in his wake.


	3. Chapter 3

His questions haunted her over the next few days. Why had he done it? What was his perspective?

What wasn't she seeing?

She chewed the same bite of oatmeal over and over again, the silence of the apartment deafening. Abed had all but disappeared again. She hated this. She hated this feeling. This riot of confusion. She hadn't felt this way since-

No.

She put her spoon down resolutely. This was just another problem- a mystery. She could solve mysteries. She just had to be systematic. Pulling a notepad from her bag, she opened it to a fresh page. At the top, she wrote 'The Brent Underjaw Conundrum'' and underlined it. Below that she wrote, "Why did Abed catfish me?" and then underneath that "What is Abed's perspective?".

Abed's perspective. Something about that phrase bothered her. Abed had always insisted he was an observer. The near constant tv watching was his way of understanding the world, of understanding other people. So, maybe to understand Abed's perspective she needed to understand tv?

Annie drummed her fingers on the table.

She needed to do some research. Hurrying to her laptop, she opened the browser and googled "Movies about catfishing" then "Movies where a man pretends to be someone else".

After a solid half an hour, she had a list of movies to investigate.

Catfish. Dave. She's the man. Roxanne. Gattaca. You've got mail. Whatever It Takes. The Truth about Cats and Dogs.

Good thing they still had Jeff's Netflix password.

Eight hours later she had a lapful of notes on index cards and an all over-ache that seemed as deep as her bones. Annie stretched back, reaching for the ceiling with a little squeal. Then she bent over to touch her toes. When she straightened up her stomach rumbled.

Moving slowly, she put water on to boil and set a bag of noodles on the counter beside the stove. While she waited to hear the murmur of boiling water, she laid her notecards out on the table.

At first glance they looked. . . deranged.

A nonsensical hodgepodge of quotes, observations, questions, and even some doodles. Annie plucked the inexpert drawings of flowers and hearts off the table and set them aside. Irrelevant, she thought. Her hand lingered over one card. She had drawn a simple sketch of two drama mask, one smiling, the other frowning. Beside them she had written, 'Sometimes masks reveal'.

Rolling her eyes, she said aloud, "Very profound, Annie," before turning back to the kitchen to dump the noodles into the boiling water. While the timer ticked down three minutes, she took out a bowl and butter.

The phrase nagged at her, 'Masks reveal'. It sounded familiar. She drained the noodles and dumped them into her bowl as the words rolled around in her head. Sitting down at the table she flipped through quotes about masks on her laptop, between bites of noodle. Again and again, she found herself reading a quote by Bao Xingjain, "It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth". And Oscar Wilde, "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell the truth".

Maybe, Abed was trying to tell her a truth?

Annie's eyes moved back to her laptop.

She still had them. All the messages from 'Bruce Underjaw'. She made a face at the screen and at her own ridiculous sentimentality.

But . . . the messages were the next logical place to search for clues.

The girl looked up suddenly, at the small mess of the table. At the safe little cave that was their apartment.

Not here, she thought. Not like this.

She would do it somewhere public where she wouldn't get emotional.

The library. That would do just fine.


	4. Chapter 4

Annie was careful to avoid the study room. Instead, she settled into a quiet corner of the unused 972s. There was an old chair back there and if you adjusted it right you could prop your feet up on the windowsill. And there was a wall plug within easy reach of her laptop charger. No one could see her from the main part of the library but the noise of the other students provided a comforting background murmur.

Pulling her laptop out of her bag, Annie noticed her hands were shaking just a little. They way they used to when she thought of reading Bruce's emails. She frowned down at the offending appendages. He wasn't real, she reminded herself.

He had felt real.

Annie opened her computer and logged into her email, double clicking on the folder she had created just for him. Or more accurately, for Abed's lies.

Why didn't you delete the folder then? Whispered a mocking little voice in her head.

She opened an email at random and started to read.

" _I wish I could show you the wheat, how the wind moves over it like waves on the sea. It's whispers are the voice god uses to-_ "

More waxing poetic about wheat. At the time, she had been moved by his spirituality and depth. He reminded her a little bit of Vaughn. If Vaughn had been . . . well, smarter. Knowing that those words had been written by a guy who had probably only ever seen a field of wheat on tv made her want to scream.

She opened another email.

" _-sorry about your father. If you want to call him, you should. But if you don't, that's okay too. If he chooses not to have you in his life, HE'S the one that's missing out._ "

Tears of embarrassment filled Annie's eyes. She had told him about her father. Told him what even the study group didn't know- how when she was thirteen, he had left. Divorced her mother, abandoned her and her brother, and moved to Brussels to take a teaching job. And start a new family. That was when grades, and extracurriculars, and success had become an obsession. That was when her mother's quest to forge her into the perfect daughter had begun. Like her mother was trying to prove that she didn't need him. That he had just been holding them all back and now they were free to really succeed. Two years later, Annie would take her first adderall as a 'study aid'.

Would Abed tell the others? Drop it into conversation in that detached way he had, just to see what would happen? She could imagine the scene. Everyone would be furious with her again for something she had done, to push them, to protect them, to help them succeed against their own wills. Shirley would demand, "Annie! Why do you do these things?!" And before Jeff could step in with one of his sarcastic speeches about her insecurity, Abed would answer flatly, "Because her father left when she was thirteen and now she has a compulsive need to control the people around her to protect herself from further loss." There would be a long pause and they would all exchange shocked glances. Then would come the long, knowing exhale of breath, "Ohhhhhhhh," as they put the pieces together. She could hear Britta's voice, "That explains the whole Jeff thing."

Annie never wanted them to know that.

Another email.

This one was a long list of questions they had exchanged.

" _What's your favorite color?_

 _What's your favorite movie?_

 _What's your dream destination?_

 _What's the one thing you refuse to eat?_

 _What sound makes you automatically happy?_

 _Are you a night owl or an early riser?_ "

Etcetera, etcetera.

She read over his replies.

" _Green._

 _Too many to choose from._

 _Los Angeles._

 _Salmon._

 _The sound of rain. Or of bacon frying._

 _Night owl._ "

Annie frowned. She had never noticed it before but these sounded like Abed answers. He hated all fish but fish sticks. He was a complete night owl. Of course, he wanted to go to Los Angeles. Annie gasped- he had once described a paper he was writing on Foley artists to her. She could hear his voice, his excitement showing in the slight inflection, "Did you know they create the sound of rain by frying bacon?" She had thought Bruce was being cute- _oh, men love bacon! Etc_. But it wasn't that at all.

Abed was telling her the truth.

She skimmed over her answers. And she had told him the truth- again and again.

" _Purple._

 _The Philadelphia Story_

 _Venice_

 _Cafeteria Meatloaf_

 _The sound of a zipper- pulled in a perfect crescendo- top to bottom_

 _Early bird"_

That was what hurt- her vulnerability. Instead of her role as "Annie- Girl Roommate, Type A Study Buddy" she was just Annie. He'd asked her for the truth. And she had given it.

Sometimes masks reveal.

Abed told her the truth.

Annie's hands were ice cold and shaking as she shoved her laptop back into her bag.

She had to find him. Right now.


End file.
